With the never-ending need to increase the recording density of storage devices, the size of magnetic devices or transducers are in constant need of shrinking.
Magnetic devices can be defined using ion beam etching (IBE) processes. Due to the non-volatile byproducts of IBE, often times side mill clean up steps are followed by device definition to remove undesirable re-deposited material. However, side milling can cause device edge damage. In addition, the shadowing effects and beam divergence of IBE processes can cause non-uniform material removal during device formation and can impact the magnetic device geometry and resulted performance of magnetic devices fabricated thereafter.
The discussion above is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.